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Ira Aldridge: Actor, Activist and Record-breaker · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. It is a weirdly cold,
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Speaker 1: but weirdly beautiful day here in our fair metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia.
0:38
Speaker 1: Let's give it up to our one and only super producer,
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Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. They called me, Ben, know we're we're
0:47
Speaker 1: hanging out. We are fans. I think all three of
0:51
Speaker 1: us are cinophiles, and we're also fans of stage works.
0:55
Speaker 1: I recently saw some stage plays in uh as the
1:00
Speaker 1: COVID lifted, yeah, or as it backed off for a second.
1:03
Speaker 1: What'd you go see? A little our town, a little
1:07
Speaker 1: uh hms Penefall, perhaps the South Pacific? Are you musical guy?
1:12
Speaker 1: I love musicals, man, I love a good musical. Have
1:15
Speaker 1: you have you seen those? Have you seen the Steven
1:16
Speaker 1: Spielberg West Side Story? Ben? I have I have? We
1:19
Speaker 1: talked about this um at some point, didn't we? I
1:23
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. It's his first musical he's ever done,
1:26
Speaker 1: and he nailed it. I've just been screaming about it.
1:29
Speaker 1: I just loved that. I watched it on a plane
1:30
Speaker 1: and I cried into my airplane Chicken Tikka Masala. It
1:34
Speaker 1: was like that kind of good cry where it's like, oh,
1:36
Speaker 1: the spectacle, the lights, the footlights, the dancing and the
1:41
Speaker 1: camera moving through the ceiling and all that. Um, we're
1:44
Speaker 1: really talking about musicals today. We are talking about the
1:47
Speaker 1: theatrical ops. Yes, wherever you want to put the R
1:52
Speaker 1: and the E, there is a difference. We'll save that.
1:55
Speaker 1: You can. You can surprise yourself with that. Yeah. So
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Speaker 1: it's weird because now when people think of theater, they
2:02
Speaker 1: think of it as something separate from the world of film. Right,
2:06
Speaker 1: Most of the famous actors you are likely to know
2:10
Speaker 1: today are film or television. But back in the day,
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Speaker 1: especially when film was coming into its own right, and
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Speaker 1: and in the years and decades and well, let's be honest,
2:24
Speaker 1: centuries before that, the celebrity actors were stage actors, you know.
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Speaker 1: And we don't have a lot of video of them,
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Speaker 1: of course, and there are relatively few photographs, especially when
2:37
Speaker 1: you go back to the time before the photograph was
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Speaker 1: a widespread technology. But you'll see woodcuts or paintings of
2:44
Speaker 1: these people who were very much like the Morgan Freeman's
2:47
Speaker 1: the Brad Pitts, the Angelina Jolie's of their day, that's right,
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Speaker 1: the Morgan Mindy's, you know, the la Vernon Shirley's, the
2:55
Speaker 1: Golden Girls, a few Jared Lettos, Yeah, this few Jared Lettos. Unfortunately,
3:01
Speaker 1: the Mr and Mrs Smith's of their time. Remember that movie.
3:04
Speaker 1: It was a big deal at the time, and I
3:06
Speaker 1: don't remember a thing about it. And they were spies
3:08
Speaker 1: and they were very good looking, and that's all I remember.
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Speaker 1: But you know, it's funny that we actually did an
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Speaker 1: episode about a pair of rivals, Shakespearean actors William McCready
3:19
Speaker 1: and Edward Edwin Forrest, who had these competing performances of Macbeth. Uh,
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Speaker 1: and there they had such like rival like super fandoms
3:29
Speaker 1: that didn't like one of the performances in that in
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Speaker 1: like a riot in the Streets of Manhattan. Remember that one. Ben.
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Speaker 1: It's been a while, but this is sort of in
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Speaker 1: the same vein as that one, because today we're talking
3:40
Speaker 1: about like the father of all of that kind of hubbub,
3:44
Speaker 1: you know, the father of all of that, like the
3:46
Speaker 1: actor as Mega Star is a guy named Ira Aldrich
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Speaker 1: who was born in New York in eighteen o seven,
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Speaker 1: and he made quite a little name for the big
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Speaker 1: name for himself back in the mid night teenth century.
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Speaker 1: He had many cultural awards and honors bestowed on him,
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Speaker 1: and as of today he is just one of thirty
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Speaker 1: three people who have been honor with a bronze plaque
4:12
Speaker 1: on a chair. That's a big deal. Gets your own
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Speaker 1: plaque on. It's not like a bench. This is on
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Speaker 1: a chair, not in a park, but at the Shakespeare
4:20
Speaker 1: Memorial Theater in Stratford upon Avon. So Ben, what's the
4:24
Speaker 1: big deal with al dress? Why was he so special
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Speaker 1: and what makes him noteworthy outside of just being a
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Speaker 1: cracker jack actor. Yeah, one phenomenal actor by all accounts
4:35
Speaker 1: to He's an American who is impressing Europeans. And three,
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Speaker 1: perhaps most importantly for this story, he was upending social
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Speaker 1: norms and taboos of the day. Because you see our
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Speaker 1: protagonist today, Ira Aldridge was black and he was living
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Speaker 1: at the time, Like we said, he's born Manhattan eighteen
4:57
Speaker 1: o seven. He was living at the time in this
5:00
Speaker 1: were of gray area between being a free person of
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Speaker 1: color and being a an enslaved person. Historians like John
5:08
Speaker 1: Hope Franklin liked to describe him as belonging to the
5:12
Speaker 1: world of the quasi free. And we learned about this,
5:16
Speaker 1: or at least I. I first learned this phrase through
5:18
Speaker 1: an excellent article in The New Yorker by Alex Ross
5:21
Speaker 1: called Othello's Daughter, and it's all about the legacy of
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Speaker 1: Ira Aldridge. So he wasn't from these uh super elite ancestrys. UH.
5:32
Speaker 1: Slavery was at the time, thankfully being gradually abolished in
5:36
Speaker 1: New York, but the population people of color in that
5:40
Speaker 1: area were still beset at all turns by Jim Crow
5:44
Speaker 1: kind of laws. You know, voting rights were restricted. That
5:48
Speaker 1: was one of the biggest deals. His father, Daniel Aldridge,
5:52
Speaker 1: was a street vendor and was a preacher in the
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Speaker 1: African Methodist Episcopal's Eye and Church. And we don't know
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Speaker 1: much about his mom other than her name Laurna. He
6:03
Speaker 1: did have a pretty good education. He learned at the
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Speaker 1: African Free School in his early years. This was a
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Speaker 1: network of schools set up by anti slavery advocates and
6:13
Speaker 1: abolitionist movements. And Daniel Aldridge Aldred Sr. He really wanted
6:20
Speaker 1: his kid to follow him into the ministry. He wanted
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Speaker 1: him to be a religious figure. But eventually I read
6:29
Speaker 1: out a taste of the theater. He probably saw it
6:32
Speaker 1: at Manhattan's now defunct Park Theater, and that's that's where
6:36
Speaker 1: he got the hook, and that's where he found his
6:37
Speaker 1: direction in life. And it's a good thing you found
6:40
Speaker 1: it too, as we'll see, yeah, for sure. Um. He
6:44
Speaker 1: participated in performances of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's adaptation of Pizarro,
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Speaker 1: which I'm I'm not familiar with, and by most accounts
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Speaker 1: from historians of the man his next acting performance was
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Speaker 1: in a Shakespearean play. It was at the African Grove Theater,
7:04
Speaker 1: which was the only theater that black actors were allowed
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Speaker 1: to perform at. It was between Bleaker Street and Prince
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Speaker 1: Street there in Lower Manhattan, and it was actually one
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Speaker 1: of the very earliest attempts to create a kind of
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Speaker 1: cultural community around theater in segregated New York. It was
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Speaker 1: all black cast crew, uh and largely because of the
7:26
Speaker 1: community kind of aspect of it. The audience was made
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Speaker 1: up of free and slave, middle class and working class alike.
7:33
Speaker 1: According to a lovely quote from a Aldrich historian in
7:38
Speaker 1: this excellent mental floss article by Natasha Frost, the nineteenth
7:42
Speaker 1: century African American actor who conquered Europe. Spoiler alert, you
7:46
Speaker 1: already kind of hinted at that. He's definitely impressing those
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Speaker 1: theater snobs in Europe, or he will be very soon.
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Speaker 1: So back to Shakespeare. He makes his Shakespearean debut in
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Speaker 1: the African Growth Theaters production of Romeo and Juliet. So
8:02
Speaker 1: he's already starting to build a name for himself, at
8:04
Speaker 1: least within his community there in New York and the
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Speaker 1: African American theater community, which was admittedly, you know, a
8:11
Speaker 1: little Niche just had this one performance space, but that
8:14
Speaker 1: was soon to change after some rocky beginnings, let's just
8:18
Speaker 1: say yeah, because the discrimination still was ever president and ubiquitous.
8:25
Speaker 1: Shortly after the grove opened, city officials kind of made
8:30
Speaker 1: up a reason to close it. They said they were
8:33
Speaker 1: getting a lot of noise complaints, so the project was
8:37
Speaker 1: relocated to Bleaker Street. But this move took the theater
8:41
Speaker 1: away from its core audience there in central Manhattan and
8:46
Speaker 1: put it in competition just geographically with larger, a bit
8:50
Speaker 1: fancier theaters, and it was struggling to compete with those,
8:54
Speaker 1: and these theaters primarily had white audiences, and the theater
9:01
Speaker 1: infrastructures there resented this new kid on the block. They
9:05
Speaker 1: also had a smaller attendance themselves, because you know, they
9:09
Speaker 1: moved away from where their audiences. So the theater ran
9:12
Speaker 1: into trouble. And these problems were exacerbated because not a
9:16
Speaker 1: week would pass without the police or local racist residents
9:20
Speaker 1: or city officials coming by just to jam them up
9:23
Speaker 1: and hassle them. We don't know exactly what happened, but
9:28
Speaker 1: there may have been some criminal behavior on the part
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Speaker 1: of these these haters. Basically it least one source claims
9:36
Speaker 1: the theater mysteriously burned to the ground in eighteen twenty six.
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Speaker 1: No records of it exist officially after eight And this
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Speaker 1: is where Aldridge said, you know, I wonder if people
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Speaker 1: are going to take me seriously as an actor in
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Speaker 1: this country, if I, as an African American, can make
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Speaker 1: a go of this in this nation. And he said no.
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Speaker 1: He decided his only path forward as a serious, determined
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Speaker 1: and inspiring actor of color was to immigrate. And that's why,
10:08
Speaker 1: when he was only seventeen in eighteen twenty four, he
10:12
Speaker 1: took a job on a ship headed to England and
10:15
Speaker 1: he planned to never return. Yeah, sort of self banishment
10:20
Speaker 1: or you know, it's an adventure of course, and trying
10:23
Speaker 1: to make his way in a place where he thought
10:25
Speaker 1: would be a little more hospitable. But it does have
10:28
Speaker 1: the the ring of exile to it in a weird way.
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Speaker 1: So he went to England. The British Empire, already abolished slavery,
10:36
Speaker 1: was a much more welcoming situation for him, because, after all,
10:40
Speaker 1: in the US, the slaves trade was still flourishing in
10:44
Speaker 1: parts of the US. I mean, it's been abolished in
10:46
Speaker 1: New York, but we know, you know how it went elsewhere,
10:50
Speaker 1: right right here where we currently sit in fact, unfortunately,
10:53
Speaker 1: but free African Americans and their descendants either way, we're
10:58
Speaker 1: not eligible for citizenship. Running slaves were to be returned
11:02
Speaker 1: to their owners caught. There's a whole bounty hunter kind
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Speaker 1: of situation around that. Really really nasty stuff, very inhospitable.
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Speaker 1: But in England, you know, well sure there was plenty
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Speaker 1: of racism, as there is everywhere and continues to be.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't just go away the moment you change the law. Uh,
11:18
Speaker 1: it was more hospitable for him and his career prospects.
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Speaker 1: So to cover the cost of his travel, he um
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Speaker 1: got a job as a steward on the very ship
11:29
Speaker 1: that took him to Britain. That's sort of like paying
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Speaker 1: for your dinner by like washing the dishes restaurants. Very clever.
11:36
Speaker 1: This guy seemed to be pretty quick on his feet
11:38
Speaker 1: and and a very like resourceful guy. So on the
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Speaker 1: trip he became friends with a British actor who was
11:45
Speaker 1: also happened to be a producer of theater, a guy
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Speaker 1: named James Walack. They met a few months earlier, and then,
11:52
Speaker 1: as chance would have it, they ran into each other
11:55
Speaker 1: again on this boat and Walack offered Aldredge a job
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Speaker 1: as well to be his like that a you know, uh,
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Speaker 1: not really an acting job. It's a little condescending, but
12:05
Speaker 1: you know it's a job nonetheless. And so they get
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Speaker 1: to Liverpool. Aldridge quits the job on the ship obviously
12:11
Speaker 1: only intended to like pay amount of money to get there.
12:15
Speaker 1: They're like, well, I feel the trade. I thought we thought.
12:17
Speaker 1: I thought we had a grand new lifelong employee. And
12:19
Speaker 1: you Ira Aldridge, you cad um. And then he decided
12:23
Speaker 1: to join the employee of this actor producer fellow. So uh,
12:28
Speaker 1: through him, he starts to meet some pretty cool context.
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Speaker 1: Even if wal it didn't, you know, give him a
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Speaker 1: useful gig in the industry right away by being around him.
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Speaker 1: He kind of you rub elbows and some of the
12:41
Speaker 1: right people in the world of theater there in a
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Speaker 1: new a new city, in a new country. For him, yeah,
12:46
Speaker 1: I al would say that was the main win for him.
12:48
Speaker 1: That was the primary method of payment for him. And
12:51
Speaker 1: it wasn't about the money, it was about the access.
12:54
Speaker 1: And he also matriculated into the University of Glasgow where
12:58
Speaker 1: he quickly just stay englished himself. Over eighteen months he
13:02
Speaker 1: won a lot of like recognition and even a gold
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Speaker 1: medal for excellence in Latin composition, which the three of
13:10
Speaker 1: us have not won for the record. So then after
13:14
Speaker 1: after his time in Glasgow, he finds work an acting
13:18
Speaker 1: gig at the Old Vic which was known back then
13:23
Speaker 1: as London's Royal Kobourg Theater. He plays the role of
13:27
Speaker 1: Orinoco in The Revolt of Surinam in eight The London
13:32
Speaker 1: press hated him. They were total pills about it. They
13:36
Speaker 1: predicted he would never work as an actor again. They
13:42
Speaker 1: would they predicted he would never worked as an actor
13:44
Speaker 1: at all again. And then they also said, and you
13:48
Speaker 1: know what, further, we don't think a black man should
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Speaker 1: be on stage at all. This started to change in
13:56
Speaker 1: May of eighteen. Later the same year when he hits
14:00
Speaker 1: London as the first actor ever in Britain to play
14:05
Speaker 1: Othello and also actually be black. Right, that's the troubling
14:17
Speaker 1: history of that character. Yeah, everyone previously playing that would
14:23
Speaker 1: have been in some kind of horrible, garish black face makeup.
14:27
Speaker 1: So uh, it's it's a very interesting character too. I mean,
14:31
Speaker 1: that is a very politically rife and controversial play from Shakespeare.
14:36
Speaker 1: Does it hold up or is it sort of a
14:38
Speaker 1: little bit? Does it not age well? Othello has It
14:44
Speaker 1: is a tragedy. It's a tragic story, and there's a
14:49
Speaker 1: lot of questions. Now. There's a lot of discourse now
14:52
Speaker 1: about whether Othello is a racist play or whether it's
14:56
Speaker 1: a play about racism, if that makes sense. There's there's
15:00
Speaker 1: a lot of great discourse. I'm having a hard time
15:03
Speaker 1: recommending some of the many articles written about this, but
15:06
Speaker 1: if you if you check, if you just search your
15:10
Speaker 1: browser choice for that question, is Othello a racist play
15:13
Speaker 1: or play about racism? You will see a lot of
15:16
Speaker 1: differing opinions here. And of course Fellow ridiculous historians, We
15:21
Speaker 1: welcome yours as well. So it's not it's not such
15:23
Speaker 1: a cut and dried answer, right like that, That's that's
15:25
Speaker 1: sort of what it comes down to, right, It's it
15:27
Speaker 1: can be complex because you have to think of the
15:29
Speaker 1: context at the time, the context of the modern reader.
15:32
Speaker 1: What did Shakespeare think? Oh boy? You know what it
15:35
Speaker 1: reminds me of is uh the way Wagner is sort
15:39
Speaker 1: of treated. So Wagner being like a known virulent anti Semite,
15:43
Speaker 1: you know it was totally a Nazi sympathizer, if not
15:46
Speaker 1: like the official composer of the Nazi Party more or less.
15:49
Speaker 1: But nowadays his music is viewed as very very important
15:53
Speaker 1: and culturally important and like in terms of like the
15:56
Speaker 1: history instrorectory of music, and there are Jewish music and
16:00
Speaker 1: conductors that will reform the work of Wagner knowing all
16:03
Speaker 1: of these things, but also knowing the impact that it had.
16:06
Speaker 1: And I saw a piece where a couple of those
16:08
Speaker 1: folks were sort of explaining, well, what better way to
16:11
Speaker 1: give the old f you to Wagner than have a
16:14
Speaker 1: bunch of Jewish dudes playing his music? Yeah, I could
16:17
Speaker 1: see that. I mean, it also goes back to the
16:19
Speaker 1: question of to whom does a work of art belong?
16:22
Speaker 1: The artist or the audience. But yeah, I think that's
16:26
Speaker 1: that's an interesting constructive way to look at it. The
16:29
Speaker 1: people of London, the literati, the tastemakers, they were also starting.
16:37
Speaker 1: The tide was starting to turn in Aldridge's favor. The
16:41
Speaker 1: critics who had lambasted him earlier weren't really sure how
16:45
Speaker 1: to take this guy because he was, as they described him,
16:49
Speaker 1: a gentleman of color, and he was also lately arrived
16:53
Speaker 1: from America. But when they saw him in Othello dude,
16:56
Speaker 1: they loved it. They said his death was certainly one
17:00
Speaker 1: of the finest physical representations of bodily anguish we ever witnessed.
17:06
Speaker 1: And still this is all, by the way, this is
17:09
Speaker 1: all happening while the guy is only seventeen years old.
17:14
Speaker 1: Shout out to Paul Anthony Jones. Uh yeah, and mental floss.
17:18
Speaker 1: He wrote Ira Aldridge, the Black Shakespearean actor who We're
17:22
Speaker 1: gonna wait on that title for a second because I
17:24
Speaker 1: don't want to spoil it too much. But his star
17:28
Speaker 1: was ascending, right He was moving into the big leagues.
17:31
Speaker 1: It wasn't very long after this he was getting top
17:35
Speaker 1: billing in different plays in different venues. He became the
17:39
Speaker 1: very first African American actor to establish himself outside of
17:44
Speaker 1: the United States. But there's some there's a lot of baggage,
17:47
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, that comes with this. He was
17:50
Speaker 1: sometimes called the African tragedian, and uh that story as
17:56
Speaker 1: a problematic etymology, we'll get to it in a second.
17:58
Speaker 1: But even always becoming that era's equivalent of a movie star,
18:03
Speaker 1: he did not have an easy ride of it, you
18:05
Speaker 1: know what I mean. This was the odds were still
18:07
Speaker 1: very much stacked against him. Yeah, I mean it was,
18:09
Speaker 1: you know, despite the comparatively progressive approach to slavery, again
18:17
Speaker 1: that was like the worst, end all, be all extreme
18:20
Speaker 1: of racism. Still plenty of old money types going to
18:24
Speaker 1: the theata that we're quite racist and did not like
18:27
Speaker 1: the look of a person of color treading the boards
18:31
Speaker 1: as it were, right on on the stages. These these
18:35
Speaker 1: like hallowed stages, hallowed halls from the Covent Garden for example,
18:39
Speaker 1: which is where he performed soon after his Othello debut,
18:44
Speaker 1: and a newspaper called The Figureo was absolutely just lambasted
18:49
Speaker 1: him and basically kind of made it almost like a
18:50
Speaker 1: personal mission of the editor to tear him down. I
18:55
Speaker 1: just have to say, he's a black guy playing Othello,
18:59
Speaker 1: what is the problem? Like? What like they're they're saying,
19:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's a bit too far, it's scandalous.
19:06
Speaker 1: It's it's so recurring to the old ways. Well what anyway, No,
19:12
Speaker 1: this all really happened, folks. Yeah, that's pretty wild. So
19:15
Speaker 1: they essentially launched a smear campaign against him, you know,
19:19
Speaker 1: largely relying on racism and otherness and just kind of
19:26
Speaker 1: treating him like some sort of foreign invader. Uh. They
19:29
Speaker 1: essentially wanted him to have to give up his his
19:33
Speaker 1: theater aspirations and become uh you know, a work bit, uh,
19:38
Speaker 1: in a lowly position suited to his station, right, something
19:42
Speaker 1: like a footman or a street sweeper quote, the level
19:46
Speaker 1: for which his color appears to have rendered him peculiarly qualified. Yeah,
19:55
Speaker 1: and uh, good news, folks, don't worry. Stories not over yet.
20:00
Speaker 1: They weren't successful, but it did kind of drive him
20:04
Speaker 1: away from the London stage. He was having a tough
20:07
Speaker 1: time getting work after the establishment said this is way
20:10
Speaker 1: too far for us. And if you look at the
20:15
Speaker 1: traditional story, you will see some people later adding some
20:20
Speaker 1: nuance onto this. So the basic story, the long story,
20:26
Speaker 1: short version, is that racism, including national media in the day,
20:31
Speaker 1: wrote these really racist reviews. But then there are other
20:35
Speaker 1: historians who are arguing it may be less clear cut
20:39
Speaker 1: because there was a flu outbreak that was driving people
20:43
Speaker 1: away from theaters at the time, and then it's possible
20:47
Speaker 1: the powerful supporters of slavery had bribed reviewers to write
20:52
Speaker 1: this opprobrious stuff. So the real answer is kind of
20:57
Speaker 1: lost to history. But we know that Aldred did not
21:00
Speaker 1: take this as the end of his career, and the
21:04
Speaker 1: stage is lucky that he refused to accept defeat. Instead,
21:08
Speaker 1: he took Othello and another play called The Padlock on
21:11
Speaker 1: a tour of all the provincial theaters in Britain. He said,
21:16
Speaker 1: look at the theaters for the people, and if London
21:19
Speaker 1: is not gonna have me, there's still people who live
21:22
Speaker 1: somewhere else. And this was a huge hit. It was
21:25
Speaker 1: a national tour. He got all these new fans. Max
21:29
Speaker 1: if we get people cheering and speak of sound oddly
21:35
Speaker 1: British perfect tell home tale, hoo, ballyhoo, baliwick, and he
21:51
Speaker 1: became he actually became the manager of the Coventry Theater
21:56
Speaker 1: in eighteen eight. So this is another first for this guy.
22:00
Speaker 1: Now he's not just the first black American actor to
22:03
Speaker 1: break through, he's the first black manager of a British theater, right.
22:07
Speaker 1: And he starts really making a name for himself also
22:09
Speaker 1: as an activist, UH, doing speaking engagements on the evils
22:13
Speaker 1: of slavery and all of that, and he becomes something
22:18
Speaker 1: of a leader in the abolitionist community there in the UK,
22:24
Speaker 1: and he really starts to kind of get a lot
22:26
Speaker 1: of support swelling around him. He takes this tour to Ireland, UH,
22:31
Speaker 1: and he arrives in Dublin and shout out to our
22:34
Speaker 1: buddy listener Andy Buck from Ireland. He could tell us
22:39
Speaker 1: a lot about it. Really really cool dude um in
22:41
Speaker 1: a band called Sky Trumpets that he named after a
22:45
Speaker 1: phenomenon that we've discussed on stuff they don't want you
22:47
Speaker 1: to know. I think he's more of a stuff that
22:48
Speaker 1: I wants you to know list But anyway, thinking of Ireland,
22:51
Speaker 1: thinking of my buddy Andy, our buddy Andy from County Cork.
22:54
Speaker 1: But he takes his tour to Dublin and becomes a
22:58
Speaker 1: smash yet surprising they think they take they take him
23:01
Speaker 1: much more easily than the Brits, which I would not
23:06
Speaker 1: necessarily expect him. No shade on the Irish. It's because
23:09
Speaker 1: I think there was a social aspect to a town,
23:11
Speaker 1: because they liked when he talked to them, you know,
23:16
Speaker 1: not in character but just as himself, and it talked
23:19
Speaker 1: about how terribly he had been treated by the British
23:22
Speaker 1: in London. And because because of the tense nature there
23:27
Speaker 1: between Ireland and and Britain, obviously he found an acquire
23:33
Speaker 1: that he could preach to. Because you have to wonder
23:36
Speaker 1: how many people who supported him in those audiences were thinking,
23:39
Speaker 1: I love Othello and I love the Podlock, and how
23:42
Speaker 1: many of them were thinking, yeah, screw the British. That
23:47
Speaker 1: guy gets it. But either way, either way he was
23:50
Speaker 1: treated really well. He made a number of lifelong friends
23:53
Speaker 1: in Ireland. He's touring Britain and Ireland repeatedly. By the
23:58
Speaker 1: eighteen thirties. He's got a one man show that he
24:01
Speaker 1: has made on his own. It's got these great dramatic monologues.
24:06
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, um, it's almost like a mix
24:08
Speaker 1: tape or a montage Shakespearean recitals songs. But then also
24:13
Speaker 1: in the midst of this he puts in real life
24:16
Speaker 1: tales from his own biography or autobiography at this point,
24:20
Speaker 1: as well as lectures on the importance of abolitionism on
24:25
Speaker 1: both sides of the pond, right. And I mean he
24:28
Speaker 1: has plenty of firsthand accounts. Even though he was never
24:31
Speaker 1: a slave himself, he's certainly experienced the prejudice and horrible
24:35
Speaker 1: kind of remnants of slavery from the attitude towards black
24:40
Speaker 1: people in the United States and in England. Also not
24:43
Speaker 1: to mention that at the time, what he's doing is
24:45
Speaker 1: almost akin to like what you think of as like
24:47
Speaker 1: a variety show. I guess, I mean, like you said,
24:49
Speaker 1: been In is a one man show, but he's doing
24:51
Speaker 1: all these different things, noting all these different bits, and
24:54
Speaker 1: it really is like educational and also entertaining and much
24:57
Speaker 1: more of like high cultural kind of you know, fair
25:00
Speaker 1: with the Shakespeare and the songs and all that um.
25:03
Speaker 1: And it really serves to kind of lambast and lampoon
25:07
Speaker 1: and serve as a meaningful kind of counter to these
25:12
Speaker 1: awful minstrel shows that were still super huge at the time.
25:16
Speaker 1: Theater is protest and I love this because yes, uh,
25:22
Speaker 1: it's it's an excellent way to to just encapsulate the
25:25
Speaker 1: power of theater, which sometimes sounds pretentious, but it is
25:29
Speaker 1: a real thing. He started using white face. Black Face
25:33
Speaker 1: was very popular and normalized at this time, and so
25:36
Speaker 1: he would put on white face and he would say, hey,
25:39
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a good actor. I'm not just a good
25:42
Speaker 1: black man who was an actor. I am a good actor.
25:44
Speaker 1: So he would play Shylock Richard the third, Macbeth king Lear,
25:48
Speaker 1: all the hits from Shakespeare. And then there was this guy,
25:51
Speaker 1: a minstrel show white actor doing black face named Thomas Rice.
25:56
Speaker 1: He came to England with his menstrel routine and Aldredge
26:01
Speaker 1: took it up a notch. He took one of Rice's
26:04
Speaker 1: own skits, minstrel show skits, and he wove it into
26:08
Speaker 1: his own show and he parodied the parody, which meant
26:11
Speaker 1: that he cut like he hamstrung anything Rice was trying
26:16
Speaker 1: to do, and showed himself to be an unparalleled performer.
26:20
Speaker 1: It's like for an example of power theater. I still
26:23
Speaker 1: can't believe we didn't get in trouble for this. During
26:26
Speaker 1: a lot of the anti choice movements here in Georgia,
26:30
Speaker 1: me and some of my colleagues started holding protests, but
26:35
Speaker 1: we just switched the word abortion for promotion. And we
26:38
Speaker 1: actually managed to interview the governor at the time and
26:43
Speaker 1: had a conversation with him until he caught on and
26:45
Speaker 1: it was on tape about whether or not he thought
26:47
Speaker 1: women should have a right to a promotion or whether
26:50
Speaker 1: it should be up to men in the government. We
26:53
Speaker 1: didn't get a reason, ladies, we didn't get arrested. But
26:58
Speaker 1: theater can be powerful, and this is something that galvanizes
27:03
Speaker 1: his crowd. But maybe we talk a little more about
27:06
Speaker 1: his role as an activist because we're pointing that out,
27:08
Speaker 1: and I think that becomes like increasingly important to him,
27:13
Speaker 1: even more so as time goes on. Yeah, and as
27:16
Speaker 1: you can tell, he's already making knave for himself essentially
27:19
Speaker 1: as an activist, and he's becoming this kind of community
27:22
Speaker 1: leader in the abolitionist movement. He really starts to use his,
27:28
Speaker 1: you know, fame from the theater to fight against slavery,
27:32
Speaker 1: even from all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. It's
27:35
Speaker 1: incredibly impressive. So shakespeare plays typically end with what is
27:40
Speaker 1: known as a jig uh in a classic performance of
27:44
Speaker 1: a Shakespeare play. I think most of the ones that
27:46
Speaker 1: i've seen. I don't know if you've ever been to
27:47
Speaker 1: like Stratford upon Avon or been to like a Shakespeare
27:50
Speaker 1: in the Park festival. I've usually seen more modernized version
27:53
Speaker 1: of us. So I am not familiar with the jig. Uh.
27:56
Speaker 1: It's some little classic dance kind of thing. It's like
27:59
Speaker 1: a day Ants song game. This is the way it's
28:02
Speaker 1: described that might poke a little fun of the story.
28:06
Speaker 1: Probably meant to deflate something super heavy that you've just experienced,
28:10
Speaker 1: right to kind of like take the air out of
28:12
Speaker 1: it a little bit and like, you know, a little
28:14
Speaker 1: bit of a palate cleanser after like spoiler alert, Romeo
28:17
Speaker 1: and Juliette kill themselves, or you know, Titus Andronicus uh
28:21
Speaker 1: feeds his nemesis is children to her in the form
28:26
Speaker 1: of meat pies. Sorry, I think it's okay to spoil Shakespeare.
28:29
Speaker 1: It's been like hundreds of years, sure if he wrote
28:32
Speaker 1: it kidding, but he takes this format thing that is understood,
28:38
Speaker 1: this this little jig, and he turns it on its head. Yeah.
28:43
Speaker 1: So the idea is, if you've ever seen some improv shows,
28:48
Speaker 1: you've seen this happen in theater that we don't know
28:50
Speaker 1: the exact dances the Shakespearean actors were doing. But we
28:53
Speaker 1: do know it was probably a way to connect them
28:56
Speaker 1: with the audience, right, And this is something that he
29:00
Speaker 1: subverts just as you described. He says, let me take
29:04
Speaker 1: this moment at the end of the show, not to
29:07
Speaker 1: have a funny dance routine where everybody gets up on
29:09
Speaker 1: the stage, you know, and starts cutting rug But let's
29:13
Speaker 1: let's use this moment for me to speak directly to
29:16
Speaker 1: the audience, to break the fourth wall. Let's be together
29:20
Speaker 1: on something serious. At first he just had a guitar
29:23
Speaker 1: that he would sing songs on, but as the years
29:26
Speaker 1: went on, he's about twenty five at this point. He
29:28
Speaker 1: starts reciting poetry he had written himself, and it's protest poetry.
29:34
Speaker 1: It's stuff like I risk my all upon my power
29:38
Speaker 1: life son, yes country, to to free my brethren fettered
29:42
Speaker 1: slaves from sinking and inglorious graves. And this starts to
29:46
Speaker 1: touch people. It also, you know, order reminds me of
29:49
Speaker 1: the It reminds me of who is it, Dylan Thomas,
29:52
Speaker 1: Do not go gentle into that good night? That that's
29:56
Speaker 1: a subversion of like what's usually what up to that?
30:00
Speaker 1: I was like a poem that was a drinking toast
30:03
Speaker 1: that would be about happy stuff. So he's he's mixing
30:06
Speaker 1: on his head and I just think it's amazing. I
30:09
Speaker 1: can't be objective. I'm a fanboy of this guy. I
30:12
Speaker 1: wish I could have seen him live. He also gave
30:14
Speaker 1: a lot of money to abolitionist charities and causes, uh,
30:18
Speaker 1: like the Negro State Conventions. Um. And this started making
30:22
Speaker 1: its way into the press as well, not necessarily in
30:25
Speaker 1: a bad way, I mean, whereas it might have been
30:27
Speaker 1: such in the past. To your point been things were
30:30
Speaker 1: sort of turning a little bit in in Europe. So
30:32
Speaker 1: one mentioned that made it to the press was about
30:36
Speaker 1: Aldredg's involvement in helping a family of fugitive slaves who
30:40
Speaker 1: ran from Baltimore to New York and were captured and
30:44
Speaker 1: then split apart and scattered across the U S. And
30:48
Speaker 1: Aldredge read about this case, uh, and he sent a
30:52
Speaker 1: large amount of money to New York Society to give
30:55
Speaker 1: them some aid. Yes, so people were basically reviewing plays
31:00
Speaker 1: they do was in, but they were increasingly focusing on
31:03
Speaker 1: his real world activism in addition to the characters he
31:07
Speaker 1: played in a complimentary tone too. Which is surprising and amazing. Yes, yeah,
31:13
Speaker 1: that's huge, and especially when you consider how Europe treated
31:18
Speaker 1: him when he first got there. So this gets the
31:21
Speaker 1: attention of the leaders of something called the New Negro movement,
31:26
Speaker 1: and the leaders of this movement, the leaders of the
31:29
Speaker 1: quality movements in general. Linkston used James Weldon Johnson W E. B. Dubois.
31:34
Speaker 1: They are all over the moon that a performer of
31:39
Speaker 1: color has made a place for themselves in European culture
31:45
Speaker 1: and European stage culture. And that's when Dubois inducts him
31:49
Speaker 1: into something called the talented tent. This was a group
31:53
Speaker 1: of exceptional individuals that W. E. B. Believed, we're going
31:57
Speaker 1: to lead the entire population, the entire diaspora, to salvation.
32:04
Speaker 1: But let's also say this Aldredge wasn't like a He
32:12
Speaker 1: wasn't always a serious, somber, no fun guy. He was
32:17
Speaker 1: a consummate showman. He would go town to town, he
32:20
Speaker 1: had really fancy carriage, he would do all this pr stuff,
32:24
Speaker 1: and he was not above a little bit of personal
32:27
Speaker 1: embellishment to get butts in the seats of the shows.
32:31
Speaker 1: He started claiming he was a descendant of an aristocratic
32:35
Speaker 1: or princely fula line, and then later he spread this
32:39
Speaker 1: story that he was born in Senegal. Neither of these
32:42
Speaker 1: were necessarily true. He definitely wasn't a radical though as
32:47
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, his political bent would have been
32:53
Speaker 1: unusual to a lot of folks today, because yes, he
32:57
Speaker 1: was very much an abolitionist. He wanted slavery gone. He
33:00
Speaker 1: also said he wasn't entirely opposed to colonialism. He was
33:05
Speaker 1: down for the advancement of the colonial enterprise. So that
33:09
Speaker 1: seems kind of contradictory at times, you know, so he
33:19
Speaker 1: somehow managed to keep was saying I'm surprised because of
33:23
Speaker 1: the way he's being received because while he's not radical,
33:27
Speaker 1: what he's doing at the time and who he is
33:31
Speaker 1: and what he looks like is radical. Right. He's not
33:34
Speaker 1: like ideologically radical or like, you know, being a super hardliner,
33:38
Speaker 1: which is important because that is exactly the ability that
33:42
Speaker 1: allows him to kind of allows his message to resonate more, right,
33:46
Speaker 1: because he's sort of he's bringing everybody in and he's
33:49
Speaker 1: making people, oh, well, this this guys a fine actor,
33:52
Speaker 1: and he's got a good head on his shoulders. Do
33:54
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe I should stop being racist. Uh,
33:57
Speaker 1: it's just I mean, I'm over simplifying a little bit,
33:59
Speaker 1: but it does seem that his accessibility from the acting
34:04
Speaker 1: world is what kind of led people to maybe pay
34:06
Speaker 1: him a little more attention and not be like freaked
34:08
Speaker 1: out by him, you know. And I'm so I'm not
34:11
Speaker 1: making excuses for needing that, but it does seem that
34:15
Speaker 1: it was a positive force in spreading that message and
34:17
Speaker 1: allowing him to do some good. So he was so
34:19
Speaker 1: popular in those days in England, playing to sold out
34:23
Speaker 1: houses every night of the week. By the eighteen fifties,
34:26
Speaker 1: is acting chops were the talk of the world. They
34:30
Speaker 1: had spread way beyond the borders of of England. So
34:35
Speaker 1: he decided that he was going to put together a
34:38
Speaker 1: traveling troop of actors and head out on a tour
34:42
Speaker 1: of the entire continent of Europe. So he did that thing,
34:46
Speaker 1: and just a couple of months he was considered the
34:50
Speaker 1: most revered, well reviewed, beloved actors in the entirety of Europe.
34:57
Speaker 1: And it's so rare for someone to be critically you know,
35:00
Speaker 1: lauded and also get good receipts, you know what I mean,
35:03
Speaker 1: and like put butts in seats and have people like
35:06
Speaker 1: the masses really love what they're doing. So this is
35:09
Speaker 1: like he's like a unicorn man. Yeah. Yeah, It's rare
35:12
Speaker 1: for someone to reach this level of accolades, and I
35:16
Speaker 1: would say he was probably one of the most lauded
35:19
Speaker 1: actors in the world by default at this point. One
35:23
Speaker 1: German writer even said, you know, Ira Aldridge might be
35:26
Speaker 1: the greatest of all actors ever. And a Polish reviewer
35:31
Speaker 1: left something was really interesting. Polish reviewers said, though the
35:35
Speaker 1: majority of spectators did not speak English, they did, however,
35:39
Speaker 1: to understand the fillings portrayed on the artist face, eyes, lips,
35:43
Speaker 1: and the tones of his voice and the entire body.
35:46
Speaker 1: So his acting, they were arguing, was on a level
35:49
Speaker 1: past language, or a level past the spoken word, which
35:53
Speaker 1: I think was amazing. Let's go back to New York,
35:56
Speaker 1: back where he's born. New York Times eighteen fifty three.
36:00
Speaker 1: They're thinking about this guy, their long lost son, and
36:03
Speaker 1: they quote a review of his Betrayal of Othello in
36:08
Speaker 1: Austria from a Viennese paper, and they say that he's
36:13
Speaker 1: an eminent artist, partially because of the simpleness and truthfulness
36:17
Speaker 1: of his performance, but also by the power with which
36:19
Speaker 1: he marks the most violent eruptions of passion. He gets
36:24
Speaker 1: cozied up to by royalty. They love him. He eventually
36:27
Speaker 1: marries a member of the of the aristocracy, Amanda van Brandt.
36:32
Speaker 1: She's a Swedish countess. She was his second wife. You
36:38
Speaker 1: don't get a name like that without some kind of royalty.
36:42
Speaker 1: So so he keeps going and he's touring all the time.
36:47
Speaker 1: For another ten years. He is, like you said, he's
36:50
Speaker 1: making receipts, he's breaking the Bacon home. He buys a
36:54
Speaker 1: couple of properties in London, one, funnily enough, on Hamlet Road.
36:59
Speaker 1: And now at this point, the Civil War across the
37:03
Speaker 1: Atlantic is over. He's in his late fifties, and he says,
37:08
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to go back to the United States.
37:10
Speaker 1: I know, I said I was never going to, but
37:12
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to go back. I want to see
37:14
Speaker 1: what my home country is like now that people have been,
37:19
Speaker 1: at least on paper emancipated. I'm gonna do a hundred
37:22
Speaker 1: date tour. And uh, people listened. The buzz started building. Yes,
37:29
Speaker 1: this was gearing up to be like the Monsters of
37:33
Speaker 1: Rock of of the era. You know, a theatrical version.
37:37
Speaker 1: You know, this is absolutely going to be a massive
37:39
Speaker 1: You know hit Blockbuster tour, but unfortunately it never happened.
37:45
Speaker 1: Why didn't it happen? While just a few weeks before
37:48
Speaker 1: uh they were to take off, Aldredge got ill. He
37:52
Speaker 1: had a lung condition that he developed while he was
37:56
Speaker 1: on tour in Poland, and unfortunately he passed away in
38:01
Speaker 1: Poland and Lauds on August seven, eighteen sixty seven. That's
38:06
Speaker 1: just a day before my birthday, at the age of
38:08
Speaker 1: sixty and he was buried in the evangelical cemetery of
38:12
Speaker 1: the site I'm not gonna lie ben this. That makes
38:14
Speaker 1: me sad. We talk a lot about people on this
38:17
Speaker 1: history podcast, and he usually ends with them dying. And
38:20
Speaker 1: I don't always care. That sounds harsh. I care, but
38:23
Speaker 1: like I don't always feel like kinship or like a
38:25
Speaker 1: little emo twist, you know when when I say the
38:28
Speaker 1: part where they die. But I feel this guy man,
38:31
Speaker 1: he seemed like a lovely man and really like changed
38:34
Speaker 1: the game in so many ways. Uh. He died two
38:37
Speaker 1: years after slavery was abolished through the Thirteenth Amendment UM
38:43
Speaker 1: and Alice Obscura points to a his obituary in the
38:48
Speaker 1: journal Opportunity that was published in nineteen and it started
38:53
Speaker 1: with a particular observation, um editorial kind of observation, Ben,
38:59
Speaker 1: you want to this quote is so good, so good. Yeah,
39:02
Speaker 1: it says he is the only actor of color that
39:05
Speaker 1: was ever known and probably the only instance that may
39:08
Speaker 1: ever again occur. Record scratch, Thanks Max. Thank god they
39:15
Speaker 1: were wrong about that, man. Yeah, they were wrong. And
39:17
Speaker 1: that's what I mean. It's like such a weird t leef.
39:21
Speaker 1: Reading that at the time probably just felt absolutely prophetic.
39:26
Speaker 1: But thank god because probably because of the groundwork this
39:29
Speaker 1: guy laid proved to be true. Yeah, it's I mean
39:33
Speaker 1: so dehumanizing as well when you consider how many actors,
39:39
Speaker 1: how many fantastic actors have lived and died since and
39:42
Speaker 1: you're working today. But there's still, make no mistake about it,
39:46
Speaker 1: a ton of discrimination in the world of acting. I remember,
39:50
Speaker 1: I remember reading that since the Academy Awards began in
39:55
Speaker 1: nine only something like six point four percent of acting
40:00
Speaker 1: nominations haven't gone to non white actors at all. Only
40:04
Speaker 1: really before Will Smith won the most recently, and only
40:09
Speaker 1: four black men and one black woman ever won the
40:12
Speaker 1: Best Actor or Actress award. Yeah, unless I mean, Ben,
40:15
Speaker 1: you and I both recently saw everything everywhere all at once.
40:19
Speaker 1: That's both liked it very very much. Um but yeah, absolutely,
40:23
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see it again in theaters. Anyone
40:25
Speaker 1: out there who hasn't seen it highly recommended. It's every
40:28
Speaker 1: bit of what they say it is, uh and and
40:30
Speaker 1: then some I think it's it's gonna be something different
40:32
Speaker 1: for everybody. But Michelle Yo is a great example of
40:35
Speaker 1: She's obviously not black, she's Asian American, but a great
40:38
Speaker 1: example of the way Hollywood even still today treats Asian
40:41
Speaker 1: Americans either get cast as some sort of like stoic
40:45
Speaker 1: kung Fu you know, lady, or she's like I think
40:49
Speaker 1: she was in Crazy Rich Asians, which is obviously a
40:52
Speaker 1: great movie. People really loved it, an important movie that
40:54
Speaker 1: highlighted some of these problems. But it's still a pretty
40:57
Speaker 1: widespread problem in Hollywood and enacting unless you start going
41:02
Speaker 1: more into these like community theater situations where it's sort
41:06
Speaker 1: of the model of the black theater that we talked
41:08
Speaker 1: about back in New York that Aldridge was a part of.
41:11
Speaker 1: So it is still a problem because you know, you know,
41:14
Speaker 1: she's in this movie giving a very incredibly heartfelt, nuanced performance.
41:19
Speaker 1: Movies about family, Yeah, It has some amazing psychedelic you know,
41:23
Speaker 1: time hopping and multiverse shenanigans, but at the end of
41:26
Speaker 1: the day, the best part of it is grounded by
41:28
Speaker 1: her beautiful heartfelt just very real performance. So good on
41:35
Speaker 1: the the Daniels for kind of pointing out this issue
41:39
Speaker 1: and showing what's possible, and hopefully Hollywood will follow suit
41:43
Speaker 1: because the movies seems to be making some money. It's
41:45
Speaker 1: usually what talks in Hollywood. I love it. It It was
41:47
Speaker 1: we're talking about this off air. It's it's pretty much.
41:50
Speaker 1: It reminds me of McSweeney's if McSweeney's a walf and
41:53
Speaker 1: made a feature length film. The creativity is amazing. It's
41:57
Speaker 1: a brainstorming session. It all winds up together and shout
42:01
Speaker 1: out to Wolfen by the way, if you want to
42:04
Speaker 1: see more immensely creative stuff. Guy, I love those guys.
42:09
Speaker 1: But it's true that Aldridge's career as an actor was
42:15
Speaker 1: beyond extraordinary. It was extra extraordinary. His career eclipsed pretty
42:22
Speaker 1: much every actor. He was an amazing actor, and not
42:25
Speaker 1: just an amazing quote black actor. He went further. He
42:29
Speaker 1: was seen by more people in more countries, He won
42:32
Speaker 1: more awards, more decorations than any other actor in his
42:36
Speaker 1: entire century. So why does he slip under the radar
42:41
Speaker 1: so often today? It's partially because he appeared almost exclusively
42:46
Speaker 1: in Europe during his career, so he doesn't appear in
42:49
Speaker 1: a lot of American theatrical histories. He traveled from place
42:53
Speaker 1: to place, so he didn't get a big reputation in
42:56
Speaker 1: any one spot. It was kind of an agglomerate thing.
43:00
Speaker 1: That's why people like Burnt Lynfers, who wrote the introduction
43:04
Speaker 1: to Ira Aldridge the African Rucius says quote, he was
43:08
Speaker 1: more common than a fixed star, here today, gone tomorrow,
43:12
Speaker 1: and as a consequence, he shines less brightly. Now kind
43:15
Speaker 1: of sad It is sad um, but again we're talking
43:21
Speaker 1: about it. But it's true. I didn't know about it
43:24
Speaker 1: until now. It certainly seems like something that should be
43:26
Speaker 1: much more in the public consciousness because clearly a very
43:29
Speaker 1: important dude, even if he doesn't get props like he should.
43:33
Speaker 1: But hopefully we at least gave you folks something to
43:36
Speaker 1: read up a little bit more about, because this guy's
43:38
Speaker 1: got a very nuanced life. And man, I'm sorry, so
43:42
Speaker 1: eight this is like, do you think there's any recordings
43:46
Speaker 1: of him doing any monologues or anything. You know. I
43:49
Speaker 1: was looking. I didn't find any at this time. It
43:53
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're not just on the cusps silent film
43:57
Speaker 1: era at best, and they didn't really know, but like
44:00
Speaker 1: there would have been I don't know when was wax
44:02
Speaker 1: cylinder technology a thing that was probably like the early
44:06
Speaker 1: nine So he would have died just ten years before
44:11
Speaker 1: the invention of the phonograph. So again, very very very close.
44:19
Speaker 1: But at least at least we can say we are
44:22
Speaker 1: spreading the story now. It remains important in the modern day.
44:26
Speaker 1: And folks, we know we went a little long on
44:28
Speaker 1: this one, but we hope you enjoyed it as much
44:31
Speaker 1: as we did. And if you know any actors, if
44:36
Speaker 1: your loved wins or actors, or if you yourself for
44:38
Speaker 1: an actor, you know it is an unforgiving and difficult profession.
44:43
Speaker 1: So be kind to him, take him out for a
44:45
Speaker 1: drink or something, you know what I mean, and go
44:48
Speaker 1: see their shows, speaking shows. Thank you so much for
44:51
Speaker 1: tuning into Hours. Thank you to Mr Max Williams, our
44:55
Speaker 1: super producer. Thanks to Casey Pegram, Eve's Jeff Cote, who else,
45:00
Speaker 1: oh oh, Christopher obviously who is gonna be here corporeally
45:06
Speaker 1: before before too long if I'm not mistaken. Yes, And
45:09
Speaker 1: I'm almost a bit sad noll that we didn't we
45:12
Speaker 1: didn't have the quister a k a. Jonathan Strickland on
45:17
Speaker 1: today's show. But I'm not sad enough to wait around
45:20
Speaker 1: to see to tread the podcast. Yeah, just so, But
45:24
Speaker 1: I'm not sad enough to wait around until he shows up.
45:26
Speaker 1: What do you think? Yeah, I think it's about It's
45:28
Speaker 1: about that time. Besides, the the giant clock is is
45:32
Speaker 1: being repaired, and so it wouldn't it wouldn't even work out,
45:34
Speaker 1: wouldn't be appropriate at all. Huge thanks to Alex Williams,
45:37
Speaker 1: who composed this begging Bob, Max Williams younger brother, curling
45:42
Speaker 1: enthusiasts and historian. I believe we have a double episode
45:47
Speaker 1: coming up that Max is a very graciously contributed research
45:51
Speaker 1: to about the history of the sport. I'm going to
45:54
Speaker 1: try my best to stay awake um the whole time.
45:58
Speaker 1: You know, it's this thing I'm doing that, or I'm
46:00
Speaker 1: antagonizing you about curling. It's the thing I'm trying out.
46:02
Speaker 1: It's it's just like I'm playing into our nemesis situation.
46:06
Speaker 1: It's not. I don't really believe it. Curling is pretty cool.
46:09
Speaker 1: It really helps me out every time you call me
46:10
Speaker 1: Matt too. Yeah, Max, I know your name. We have
46:14
Speaker 1: another show where there's a Matt, so I have a
46:16
Speaker 1: little punchy right, I mean, I mean, how often do
46:18
Speaker 1: you call Matt Max? I'm just saying it, mad Max.
46:22
Speaker 1: I call sometimes. Yeah. I thought the name of the
46:25
Speaker 1: film series was Matt Max just because I don't read
46:28
Speaker 1: headlines or titles, but Matt Max is a is a
46:32
Speaker 1: popular Germans children's television program or a candy bar. I
46:36
Speaker 1: would try the uh anyhow two did? For our upcoming episodes,
46:42
Speaker 1: will the uh? Will the tension continue to build to
46:46
Speaker 1: a breaking point over curling? Only you can tell it
46:49
Speaker 1: will be a very special week for all of us, folks.
46:52
Speaker 1: We can't wait to hear from you. You can find
46:55
Speaker 1: us wherever you get your podcast, and we'll join you
46:59
Speaker 1: very too. If it's more ridiculous history, boy, will we
47:02
Speaker 1: ever see you next time? Folks. For more podcasts from
47:12
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
47:15
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.